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- JOSEPH HERDES
1832-1867
Joseph Herdes, the forefather of the Herdes family in Illinois, was born in Germany in 1832. He immigrated to the United States around 1850 while still a teenager, according to family lore. On May 27, 1857 he was married in Carlinville, Illinoiis to Mary Ann Higgens. She was still a minor, so her father came to the Macoupin County courthouse to sign an affidavit giving his consent. After her untimely death, Joseph was re-married to another Mary Ann, Mary Ann Minard Mead, on February 26 1860 in Clay City Illinois. They lived on a farm northeast of Clay City and had two children, James Monroe, born May 7, 1863, and Samantha Jane, born February 1863.
On February 15, 1865 Joseph at age thirty-three joined the Union Army to serve in the Civil War. He enlisted for a period of one year and joined Company D of the 155th Illinois Regiment at Camp Butler, Illinois. The timing of his enlistment is ssomewhat inexplicable since the end of the war was two months away and he joined two weeks prior to the birth of his daughter. He signed up with two of his neighbors, and they may have been attracted by a bounty of thirty-three dollars, which was paid at the time of their discharge.
According to pay slips in his Military Service Records (file no. 701-051) at the National Archives, Joseph was five feet eight inches tall, had fair complexion, light hair and blue eyes. He was mustered out of the service at Murfreesboro, Illinois on September 4, 1865 after eight months of service and after the Civil War had ended in April 1865. Under a general order of the War Department he was able to keep his Springfield rifled musket for six dollars. According to one of his granddaughters, Margaret Herdes Henderson, in later years the bayonet from the rifle was used as a corn knife on her father's farm
The Adjutant General's Report on the 155th Illinois Infantry Regimental History indicates that the regiment was organized at Camp Butler by Colonel Gustave A. Smith, and mustered in February 28, 1865. On March 2, the unit of 904 men moved to Tullahoma, Tennessee and was assigned to the command of Brevet Brigadier General Dudley. On June 17 the regiment was divided into detachments of twenty to thirty men each and assigned to guard duty on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. Their duties included occupying blockhouses on the railroad from Nashville to Duck River, a distance of fifty miles. On September 4, 1865 the entire regiment was mustered out of service and moved to Camp Butler where the men received final pay and discharge. The 155th was the last regiment organized in Illinois during the Civil War.
Less than a year and a half after he was discharged as a private, Joseph Herdes died on January 20, 1867 at his farm home northeast of Clay City. He was buried in the Leonard/Snyder cemetery (known locally as the Wease cemetery) located in Pixleley township north east of Clay City near the boundary with Clay City Township. Joseph's only son and namesake, James Monroe Herdes, who was known as Roe, was three years old. Joseph's wife, Mary Ann, re-married a year later on January 7, 1868 to William Leonard. Some thirty years later in 1899 Mary Ann started an eight year long effort to acquire a Civil War survivors pension based on her claim that Joseph's death was caused by his Civil War service.
The US Congress had enacted legislation following the Civil War to provide pensions to the survivors of war veterans. The Interior Department's Bureau of Pensions administered the pension program, and pensions were paid when the War Department certified that the death of a veteran was war related. After several petitions by Mary Ann Leonard, the War Department denied her claim in 1907 saying that there was no evidence to support that Joseph's death was related to his military service.
The Interior Department's Bureau of Pensions records on file in the National Archives have several documents (docket no 121-1116) on the efforts by Mary Ann to justify her claim. According to a number of affidavits she was able after thirty years to obtain from former neighbors, Joseph died of chronic diarrhea and lung trouble. Two of his comrades in the 155th, Henry and George Payne, said that Joseph came down with diarrhea in June 1865 when they were stationed in Tullahoma, Tennesseeee. Henry and George were also neighboring farmers to Joseph after the war, and both said that he never recovered from the disease. There were, however, no medical records to substantiate the cause of his death. There were also no church records, and the affidavits indicated that Joseph was not known to have belonged to a church.
Joseph's only son, James Monroe Herdes (Roe), married at age nineteen to Sarah D. Snyder. They were married in Clay City on February 15, 1883 and also lived on a farm northeast of Clay City. Sarah, who was ten years Roe's senior, had been married previously to Seth Evans and had one child, Johnny Evans, who was remembered fondly by his nieces and nephews. Roe and Sarah had eight children, five of whom lived until adulthood. The three sons, Claude, Charles (Chart), and James all lived out their lives as farmers in the Lathrop Chapel neighborhood near Smith Cemetery northeast of Clay City. The Herdes legacy now continues more widespread through the progeny of Claude, Chart and Jim Herdes.
To commemorate the Civil War service of Joseph Herdes, a Veterans Administration marble headstone was erected in his honor in September 2003 at his unmarked gravesite in the Leonard/Snyder cemetery. The GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) headstone that had previously marked his grave was displaced during decades of neglect at the remote cemetery before cemetery stewardship was mandated. A family dedication at the Joseph Herdes gravesite is planned for the spring of 2004.
The brief biography of Joseph Herdes was authored by one of his great great grandsons, Darold R. Herdes.
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1832 - 1867 (35 years)
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